Dr. John P. Craig of Tucson, Ariz., passed away Sept. 22, 2016, of lung cancer.
He was born in West Liberty, to the late Ralph “Red” and Viola Craig.
He is survived by a brother, Richard of Goshen, Ind., and a sister, Jane Ann of Tucson, Ariz.
He attended grammar and high school in West Liberty and was drafted his sophomore year at Oberlin College and rushed through Western Reserve Medical school where he became an Army medical doctor at the age of 24.
After WWII, he did graduate work at Harvard University, and in 1949 he enlisted as an Army physician where he was stationed in Japan at the outbreak of the Korean War. He was a captain and battalion surgeon in the Army. After he returned from Japan, he participated in the Inchon Invasion on Korea’s west coast and later was nearly cut off when his unit was near the China border and the Chinese invaded form the North. While in Korea, he had the assignment of assessing infectious diseases for which the army, at the time, had no way to combat.
After the armistice, he did more post-graduate work at Yale University, where he became a professor of immunology and microbiology at New York State Medical School. In addition to teaching, he also did research through the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Health Organization, much of it in the former West Pakistan.
In 1993, The John P. Craig Award for Excellence in Microbiology and Immunology was established at the Downstate campus of New York State University. It is an annual award given to the most outstanding medical student. He retired to Tucson upon his retirement.
Dr. Craig was cremated and his cremains will be interred at the Craig family plot at Fairview Cemetery, West Liberty, at a later date with services handled by Eichholtz Daring & Sanford Funeral Home, West Liberty.
Condolences may be expressed at www.edsfh.com.